Kukla's Korner Hockey

If this NHL season is going to end the way 1994’s did, with a New York championship, it’s absolutely perfect—even mandatory—that Henrik Lundqvist and the Rangers would now find the New Jersey Devils sitting there, waiting for them in the Eastern Conference finals. Because in so many ways, Lundqvist has become who Devils goaltender Martin Brodeur used to be—the best goalkeeper in the world, the most important player on a team with real Stanley Cup aspirations and the front-runner for the Vezina Trophy that signifies the best keeper in the NHL.

But until Saturday night, when Lundqvist was again sensational in making the Rangers’ Game 7 victory over the Washington Capitals stand up before a rollicking Madison Square Garden crowd that was living, dying, shrieking and gasping at nearly every shot—“I’m not gonna lie, I was nervous, too,” Lundqvist said with a laugh—Lundqvist had no real claim to authoring the sort of playoff folklore that that beloved ‘94 team of Messier and Matteau, Leetch and Richter wrote once upon a time.